


desert lullaby

by nimueailinen



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Gen, Pre-The Phantom Menace, Slavery, Tatooine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-30
Updated: 2015-03-30
Packaged: 2018-03-20 08:06:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 825
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3642858
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nimueailinen/pseuds/nimueailinen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>there’s a girl, and a desert, and the clear blue of an endless summer sky.</p>
            </blockquote>





	desert lullaby

**Author's Note:**

  * For [yet_intrepid](https://archiveofourown.org/users/yet_intrepid/gifts).



> Warning for discussion of suicide.
> 
> Title from the Chris Stuart song of the same name.

i.

there’s a girl, and a desert, and the clear blue of an endless summer sky.

 

ii.

shmi, daughter of clan sky-walker, has never seen sand before in her life. she loves the green of growing things, the chill of deep space; her new home has little enough of either. it is too hot here, too gritty, with sand that rubs rough against her skin no matter how many layers she wears. it catches in her hair and fills her boots, works its way under her nails, until she feels like she’s nothing but sand in the shape of a girl, like if she stands outside too long, the wind will blow her to pieces and carry her out into the desert, never to be seen again.

she doesn’t think she would mind that much if it did.

shmi is little more than eight years old. she has been a slave for six months, and already, she has learned the taste of despair.

 

iii. 

this is the second rule: _don’t look back_. don’t _ever_ look back – if you look back, you are lost, you will drown in your own sorrow, you will lie down among the shifting sands and refuse to endure a single second more of this wretched existence. don’t look back, because the first rule is _be brave_ , and it’s so much harder to be brave when you remember what lies behind you.

it is a mantra that is almost a song, and life in the slave quarters moves to the melody: be brave. don’t look back. not if you want to live. 

most days, shmi wants to live. she learns the rules early and learns them well and repeats them to herself until they are carved into the very heart of her, her blood and her bones, a token against the impossible heat of the suns.

_be brave and don’t look back._

 

iv. 

the people of the desert, slaves who were born here, whose parents were born here, speak of the vast, unending desert like it’s a person, and revere it like it’s a god.

_she is the mother of us all_ , they whisper to each other. _someday, she will come to us, and we will be free_ , and shmi works intricate knots into stolen scraps of fabric, the way her mother used to, and _her_ mother before her, to honor the gods of the sky. there is no altar here for her to tie them on, but she walks outside the gates and opens her hands, and the breeze catches her paltry offerings and blows them away until they’re lost among the sands.

she has little enough use for distant somedays, but hope is the only thing left to her now, and a far-off hope is better than no hope at all. 

(and sometimes, when the world is quiet and the warm desert wind swirls and tangles in her hair, she could swear it calls her _daughter._ )

 

v. 

there are limits to what the soul can endure.

shmi, who was once the daughter of clan sky-walker, who has been a slave of the hutts for more than twenty years, is rapidly reaching the limit of hers. she makes no plans, says no goodbyes; she simply rises at dawn one day and walks out into the desert. she doesn’t know how far she’ll have to go before the transmitter under her skin explodes, but gardulla keeps her house slaves on a very short leash. she doesn’t think it will be very far.

she fails to account for the desert.

in the end, she gets five steps past the gate before the sandstorm hits. the wind batters her body, pushing her back with every step she takes until she’s driven up against the walls of gardulla’s palace, and shmi doesn’t put much stock in augury these days, but even she can recognize a sign such as this.

_if you will not let me die_ , she screams into the wind, choking on the swirling sands, _if you will not let me die, then give me a reason to live_.

the storm passes in time, as all storms do, and when it is gone, shmi looks up into the bluest skies she has ever seen and knows, sure as her own name, she is carrying a son.

 

vi. 

her baby’s eyes are the endless blue of the tatooine sky.

she names her son anakin, for the grandfather she barely remembers, a man who sailed the vast blackness of space and knew the names of all the stars. _and you will know them, too,_ she whispers to the child lying quiet in her arms. _you will see the stars one day, my love. i promise._

it’s an impossible promise, but impossible promises are all she has to give to her son, impossible promises and hope and love and the bright, eternal skies, and it’s not much, but it might be enough, at least, for a beginning.


End file.
